Southern Gods Read Online Free PDF

we called the police station at Brinkley—which is Early’s last known whereabouts, about four days old from the point he went missing—and the Brinkley police force has got a whopping two men, the sheriff and his deputy, and they sounded like they was going to tear up the earth looking for Early, at least once they got through with lunch. I tell you, it’s backward over there. So we need you to find him for us; we need somebody, if Corso is to be believed, who can get the job done quick and professionally, not pass on any word of the payola and entertainment aspects of Early’s job, and most important, keep his mouth shut. You got that, son?”
    Ingram nodded.
    Phelps pulled out his wallet and laid out five crisp twenty dollar bills on the studio’s console. “Here’s some operating cash, for gas, lodging, food. There’s juke joints and barrelhouses all over eastern Arkansas that Early would go to and scout talent when he was on the road. Maybe you can get wind of his trail either there or at the stations. The last station I could find record of him visiting was in Brinkley, a boil on the ass of the South, that’s for sure. KBRI is its call letters, broadcasting at 1570 AM. Man by the name of Couch was Early’s contact there. You might want to talk to Early’s wife, get the low down on his last call. Here’s her address. After that, I want you to report to me twice a week.”
    “See Early’s wife. Couch in Brinkley. WBRI. Report twice a week. Got it.”
    The older man drank, shivered with the alcohol, and said, “That’s the first part of the job. Here’s the second. Come over here and listen to this.”
    Phelps moved his chair over and manipulated the controls of a reel-to-reel recorder. The tape hissed on the spindles. Phelps turned to Ingram, hand on the machine’s controls, and said, “The past month or so, we’ve been picking up a radio station out of Arkansas. It’s a pirate radio station, which means it doesn’t obey FCC regulations, doesn’t broadcast its call letters every hour. I want you to find out where it’s coming from. Who runs it.”
    Phelps gave Ingram a penetrating look. “You’ll understand a little bit more after I play this for you.” He flipped the switch, and the machine began to play.
    From the speakers came harsh fumbling noises. Then silence. More noises and then Phelps’ voice saying, “Get it over here. Just get the goddamned mic and put it by the radio’s speaker! Right there—”
    Scared. He’s frightened.
    More thumps and static sounded. Then Phelps screeched, “Turn up the volume! Turn up the radio!”
    There were more hisses and scratches, then sound came from the speakers. A guitar, liquid and buzzing. But something else was layered over it, under it.
    The guitar slurred out a melody, the player’s fingers obviously dexterous, quickly alternating from finger picking to buzzing the slide, always returning to a minor melody. The guitarist kept time by stomping his feet.
    Ingram shifted in his seat, fists balled into hard knots. Something was coming with the sound that he couldn’t understand.
    The stomps went beyond dull treads reverberating on wood. The percussion sounded like the foot of a slave still shackled and possessed. The percussive beat held the sound of a thousand slaves, bloody and broken and murderous, each walking forward with the rattle and clank of their broken shackles, knives whisking in their hands, walking through the night under black skies. The guitar’s atonal buzz reached places in Ingram that had been deaf until then, each note curdled with madness and hatred, each measure meted out in some ethereal range that was perceived by more than ears—as if Ingram, not the radio, were the receiver and the invisible transmissions emanating out of the deep and dark fields of Arkansas held some frightening and terrible message just for him. As he listened, Ingram’s skin grew clammy, and each hair stood on end.

    Beyond the sun, beyond the